An Assignment On Poverty reduction : the case of Bangladesh

Course name :Political Economy of Bangladesh (602)

Submitted to :
Mr. Mohammad Sohrab Hossain Assistant professor Honorable course teacher Department of political science University of Dhaka

Submitted by:
Kazi Efatul Islam Roll: 238.Semester : 6th Section: B. Session: 2008-09 Department of political science University of Dhaka.

Submission date: 30. 11. 2011

Introduction
Poverty is a curse to the people. It is an unacceptable human condition. Poverty refers to the condition of not having the means to afford the basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. The visible effects of poverty are malnutrition, ill health, poor housing conditions, illiteracy and unemployment. The cause of poverty are rooted in the complex of cultural arbitrariness demographic, economic, social, political various other natural factors such as floods, cyclones and droughts. Poverty is acute in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh overall economic development and poverty alleviation are synonymous. So, poverty alleviation has been integrated with the development strategies of country. In March 2003, Bangladesh produced the national strategy for economic growth, poverty reduction and social development. This document outlines Bangladeshs strategy to poverty alleviation and to achieve millennium development goals.

What is poverty?
There is no one single definition of poverty. One figure which has been suggested is that an income of half the national average indicates poverty. A man or woman is considered poor or he or she said to be poverty stricken when him or her income is below a certain level and the members of the household are deprived of the basic materials and other conditions necessary for proper participation in the society where they live .Obviously the definition of that level and relevant income criteria vary from country to country. Here are some definitions that different organizations use--Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow ones food or a job to earn ones living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation. --United Nations Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better ones life. --World Bank
"Poverty is

defined relative to the standards of living in a society at a specific time. People live in poverty when they are denied an income sufficient for their material needs and when these circumstances exclude them from taking part in activities which are an accepted part of daily life

in that society."

--Scottish Poverty Information Unit

"There are basically three current definitions of poverty in common usage: absolute poverty, relative poverty and social exclusion. Absolute poverty is defined as the lack of sufficient resources with which to keep body and soul together. Relative poverty defines income or resources in relation to the average. It is concerned with the absence of the material needs to participate fully in accepted daily life. Social exclusion is a new term used by the Government. The Prime Minister described social exclusion as "a shorthand label for what can happen when individuals or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown"."

--The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee

The EUs working definition of poverty is Persons, families and groups of persons which resources material (culture and social) are so limited as exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in the state to which they belong. -- (Www. chidrenwales.Org.uk)

Types of poverty
Poverty is generally of two types --1. Absolute poverty : Synonymous with destitution and occurs when people cant obtain adequate resources (measured in terms of calorie and nutrition) to support a minimum level of physical health means about the same everywhere and can be eradicate demonstrated by some countries. 2. Relative poverty : Occurs when people dont enjoy a certain minimum level of living as determined by a government (and enjoyed by the bulk of the population) that varies from country to country sometimes within the same country. It occurs everywhere said to be increasing and never be eradicate. -- (Www.businessdictionary.com)

Causes of poverty in Bangladesh

Before showing the causes, I would like to delineate the present situation of poverty in Bangladesh. Around 31% of the rural population presently suffers the indignity of chronic poverty low consumption, hunger and under-nutrition, lack of access to basic health services, illiteracy and other deprivations for more than a decade. About 24% of the total population currently lives in extreme income-poverty. About 19% of rural households cannot have 'full three meals' a day; about 10% subsist on two meals or less for a number of months every year. While Bangladesh has come out of the "shadow of famine", the problem of starvation still persists. However, 47% people are staying below poverty line and 28% of our population lives under the extreme poverty line. About 40 million people go to bed without meal every night. This observation shows that Bangladesh is a country of poor. Although, several international organizations like IMF, World Bank; Government and Non Governmental organizations have been working for the alleviation of poverty but the success in the field is very negligible i.e. 1% or 1.8% at best each year. Statistics show reduction of poverty in the last five years (1999---2004) from 44.7% to 42.1%. But according to the principles of Millennium Development Goals (MDG), we have to reduce poverty by 1.15% every year. Now what are the causes of poverty, we can give the following points as the causes. A. Rapid growth of population. B. Inequitable distribution of land, income and productive assets. C. Death of chief wage- earner. D. Incapability of chief wage- earner through accident, illness, and old age. E. Chronic irregularity of work. F. Largeness of family. G. Low wage. H. Habits drinking, betting, and gambling. I. Careless housekeeping for improvident expenditure. J. Chronic shortage of cash. K. Absence of food reserves. L. Natural calamities (river erosion, cyclone, tidal surge, excessive rain).

M. Under developed communications system. N. Lack of education and skilled labor. O. Lack of administrative fairness and accountability. P. Limited access to public services. Q. Lack of mass people's participation in local government etc. Let us find some probable reason of the poverty of Bangladesh. 1. Corruption: Corruption by the top level personnel of Bangladesh government can causes the poverty of Bangladesh. When a project is passed to enrich the poor peoples; the corrupted manager, contractor and other government authority claim a percentage from the total budget and ultimately a little portion of money is reached to the poor people. Thats why the rich people are being richer and the poor people still remains poor and being poorer day by day. 2. Laziness: Bangladeshi peoples are comparatively lazy than the other country like European, Japanese, Chinese and American. When the people of other country pass all of their time behind the job, Bangladeshi passes this time by rambling, gossiping and conversing about the political issues. So the total working hour is comparatively less than a country is needed to be rich. 3. In-adequate Jobs in the Market: The vacancy in Job Sector is horribly less and the number of candidates is really huge. A lot of educated peoples are really unemployed and thus this country is to take the burden of the unemployed peoples without getting any benefit. And it causes the Poverty. 4. Larger Population: Its so tough to distribute proper rules, education, health services to the huge quantity of people. If any jobs or project is opened, a very few peoples get chance to do job there. So, other people remain unemployed and cause the poverty of Bangladesh. 5. Education: The more educated a Nation is; the more prosper they are. In this educational sense Bangladesh is really ill-fated that only 60% percent of Bangladeshi are educated. And most importantly, among the 60% only 20 % are really educated enough to provide service in any organization or farm. The reason of the poverty of Bangladesh is the lack of Technology & Technical Education. The government should have to enlarge the technical education to enlarge the rate of employed peoples and to reduce the poverty of Bangladesh.

Poverty reduction:
Poverty reduction has been largely as a result of overall economic growth. Poverty reduction is often used as a short hand for promoting economic growth

that will permanently lift as many people as possible over a poverty line. But there are many different objectives that are consistent with poverty reduction. There are tradeoff between tacking current poverty, between helping as many poor people as possible and this which deal with these symptoms. Because donors focus on just on dimension of poverty reduction, they marginalize other legitimate objectives such as reducing chronic poverty on providing social services in countries that cant otherwise afford them. Aid could be more effective if there was greater recognition of the different dimensions of poverty reduction and if this was recognized in the objectives for and incentives in aid agencies.

Types of poverty reduction program:

Poverty reduction programs are of 3 types -- Short term: These that sustain the supply of basic services to the poor during emergencies. Midterm: Those that help address structural issues affecting delivery of basic services other targeted poverty reduction. Long term: Those that stimulate pro-poor growth and encourage expansion of the private sector and sustainable economic growth. Short term Mid term Long term

Role of Government Organizations in Poverty Reduction

Poverty is one of the important problems in our country. It creates other many problems for the people. In this situation, it is very much necessary to alleviate the poverty from Bangladesh. For poverty alleviation, different organizations, NGOs and associations have taken various effective programmes and steps. On the other hand government also has taken some plans and policies for poverty alleviation. In 2000-20001 fiscal year, government has declared a large amount of money for poverty alleviation and rural development now I would like to mention the following steps, programmes, plan and fiscal also should be followed for poverty alleviation Bangladesh.

Government Organizations:
The Economic Development Program (EDP) works with and for the disadvantaged rural people of Bangladesh, especially women, and it has a compelling vision of a society where the poor and disadvantaged will be able to achieve sustainable improvement in their livelihoods, attain a high degree of self reliance and manage their own affairs with dignity and freedom. In the last three decades, with more than three and a half million rural women, it has been able to reach a large number of poor people. EDP has been working in all the 64 districts of Bangladesh and has a wide range of interventions including institution building, microfinance, sector program, social development and health intervention. EDP's greatest strength lies in its innovative development programs and learning from experiences. Bangladesh has made great strides since its independence in 1971--in food grain production, prevention of famines, effective response to natural calamities, and achievements on the social front. Rural poverty, however, remains extensive. More than half of Bangladeshis are below the poverty line and about 90 percent of the poor live in rural areas. "To reduce poverty, it is crucial to develop rural areas--where most of the poor people live. Poverty in Bangladesh must be reduced by helping agriculture and rural non-farm sectors grow faster and by strengthening rural institutions that empower rural people to improve their income and welfare. "The proposed rural development strategy addresses the critical constraints to rural growth and to the building of rural institutions within a medium-term time frame. The key propositions of the strategy are to: i) improve short-term food assistance and reform food policy, ii) reform policy environment and public sector programs for farm and non-farm growth, iii) invest in improved infrastructure, iv) improve the efficiency of the rural financial system, and v) build a strong local government system." In Bangladesh, the approach to poverty alleviation, particularly reduction of income poverty, covers several channels. An important channel is economic growth. Although the impact of economic growth on poverty is somewhat indirect, high economic growth, alongwith measures to influence the quality of growth such that its poverty alleviating capacity is increased, is an important element of a successful anti-poverty strategy in the country. In addition, direct efforts to reduce poverty cover several routes e.g. capabilityraising of the poor by education, health and nutrition interventions; targeted employment, and safety nets programmes; and improvements in non-material dimensions of well-being including gender gaps, insecurity, powerlessness and social exclusion. In short, the approach sets three broad imperatives in the fight against poverty: First, opportunities for employment and productivity growth must be created so that incomes rise and the poor are able to move out of poverty;

Second, measures must be put in place to ensure that access to basic services is equitable so that the poor can benefit; and Third, special measures must be taken to reduce the vulnerability of the poor to unforeseen events and shocks. Food Assisted Programmes Bangladesh has one of the largest systems of targeted food transfer programmes in the world through which, since 1993/94, more than 1 million metric tons of food grains are channeled to the target population. The food assisted programmes generally act as conduits of transfer to enhance household food security and, in many cases, as a means of promoting human development of the poor. During the 1990s, resources channeled through these programmes increased significantly. The share of food grains distributed through food assisted programmes in the Public Food Distribution System (PFDS) also rose sharply in the 1990s: from less than 30 per cent in the early 1980s to over 80 per cent in the late 1990s.In FY 2008-09 under the ministry of food and Disaster management government launce many program like VGF,VGD,TR,GR for reducing poverty. Rural Infrastructure Development Programme: The rural infrastructure development programmes support building and maintenance of rural roads, bridges and culverts, small scale irrigation structures, development of trading facilities in rural markets, and creation of trading network. The Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), under the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, is involved in the development of rural infrastructure including rural roads, growth centers, embankments and other physical facilities. Another unique programme of cash for work in rural infrastructure development is the Rural Maintenance Programme (RMP) which started in 1983. All the beneficiaries of RMP are women. The programme employs 41,000 destitute rural women (with land ownership of less than 0.5 acre) from 4,100 unions of 435 upazilas in 61 districts as RMP crews. They are employed on a daily wage basis for maintenance of 15 miles of rural earthen road throughout the year. The RMP crews maintain a total of 42,596 km of rural roads in the country and remain in the payroll for a period of four years after which they graduate from the programme. The Rural Maintenance Programme (RMP): This program is similar to FFW programmes and is implemented by Union Parishads with assistance of CARE-Bangladesh. With the dual objective of maintaining rural earthen roads and providing employment and training to destitute women, RMP covers about 4,100 union parishads in the country. In each union, 20 km of rural roads, built under IFFD-FFW programme, are maintained by a road maintenance association (RMA) comprising 10 destitute women. The

RMA is responsible for maintaining the given stretch of road with quality monitoring done by a union parishad member. The union parishad and a Project Implementation Committee oversee the beneficiary selection process. The eligibility criteria include: being divorced, separated, or otherwise destitute; work. The participating women are enrolled in a four-year programme of RMP work and training during which they are paid Tk. 43 per day as wages (about one-fourth per cent is retained as savings on their behalf). During the last year of the project cycle, the women are given more intensive training in basic business management to help them in pursuing gainful activities after graduation from the project. Programs under poultry and livestock sector Artificial insemination is an important and successful program in livestock sector. In FY 200809, about 20.00 lakh cattle have been artificially inseminated through 2069 artificial insemination centers of the country. Besides, small farmers and peasant are given advice and training on poultry and livestock rearing. Fund for housing the homeless As of June 2009, 115.66 cores have already been released against an allocation of 204.26 core for rural housing program and 46,567 houses have already been constructed where the number of beneficiaries stand at 2.30 lakh. In additions 10.84 cores has been released as grant. Youth development through self-employment Considering the importance of youth participation in the development process, the Department of Youth development trained 32, 03156 lakh youths up to June 2009. Out of the trained youth s, 17, 90,296 youths became self-reliant through self-employment. This is consistent with the Governments commitment to generate employment for one unemployment male or female from each family for at least 100days in a year.

Role of NGOs in Poverty Reduction

The programmes of leading NGOs are as follows
There are many NGOs in Bangladesh. Among them the leading NGOs are BRAC, ASA, SWANIRVAR BANGLADESH, PROSHIKA, TMSS, Shakti Foundation, Society for social Development, BURO Bangladesh, Grameen Bank, palli karma-sahayak foundation (PKSF). The programmes of this NGOs are given below in details

Microcredit programmes of NGOs

Over the years, Bangladesh has emerged as the pioneer in innovating and managing microcredit programmes for income/employment generation along with social programmes and support activities. Microcredit programmes have a wide network in the country involving both the Government agencies and the NGO sector. The Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB) disbursed more than Tk. 17 billion as microcredit to 1.3 million beneficiaries during 1991-2000. There exist many other institutions which are involved in microcredit including the NGOs. The Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) is a Government financed institution which disbursed nearly Tk. 8 billion through NGOs till December 2000. The Grameen Banks cumulative disbursement of microcredit was Tk. 137 billion till December 2000. While comprehensive statistics are difficult to arrive at, available information show that different microfinance NGOs distributed more than Tk. 109 billion to 10 million borrowers till June 2000 (CDF 2001). The microcredit activities, in general, are economically efficient which generate a net surplus for the poor borrowers. These programmes also create positive impact on socioeconomic indicators including childrens schooling, nutrition, and fertility. To bring the rural poor into mainstream of development, NGOS focuses on institution building as a strategy. NGOS believes that a common platform that is cre ated and owned by the poor is a prerequisite through which the poor can make themselves count in the development process. The Village Organization (VO) is an association of the poor and the landless people who come together with the help of NGOS to try and improve their socioeconomic position. NGOSs approach to social and economic development of the poor, especially women, involves four inter-related strategies: institution building, service delivery, social mobilization and public sector mobilization. NGOSs core approach and competency is the delivery of health, education, microfinance, and microenterprise services on a large scale to the rural poor, primarily women. NGOS decided to train local women to help deliver these services and organize local grou ps. As a result, NGOSs service delivery contributes to building local leadership and local organizations. As of December 2002, NGOS had organized its 3.53 million members into 113,756 VOs across the country. NGOSs microfinance staff meets VOs once a week to discuss and facilitate credit operations, the social development staff meet VO members twice a month to discuss various socioeconomic and legal issues and the health staff meet with the VOs once a month to discuss health issues.

Microfinance Program
The microfinance program of BRAC is a tool for poverty alleviation and empowering the poor. Lack of access to the formal banking system deprives them of the facilities to borrow, save and invest in productive activities, and this is a major reason why poor people remain poor.. Making credit available to the rural poor enables them to become involved in different income generating activities which, in turn, allows them to become economically self-reliant. Through this process BRACs microfinance program works to create a self sustaining and reliable financial service program for the poor.

Credit
Credit is provided to its VO members to initiate different income generating activities. While loans for individual and joint activities do not require collateral, members must have some savings with the organisation before they are eligible for loans. Credit operations are carried out through a Revolving Loan Fund (RLF). This RLF consists of donors fund, members savings, Polli Karmo Shohayok Foundation (PKSF) loan and other loans. Loans realized from VO members are credited to and form part of the RLF for extending further credit. A 2% loan loss reserve is kept to cover the risk of bad debts and death. Regular borrowing and payments allow the borrower to take larger loans. Key Features of Loan - Loan range: US$ 17 (Tk.1, 000) to US$ 345 (Tk. 20,000) - Service Charge: 15% - Repayment mechanism: Equal weekly installments In 2002, US$ 294 million (Tk. 1,707 core) has been disbursed to 2.9 million borrowers with repayment rate of over 98%.

Savings
Savings is an important component of microfinance services. Experiences show that there is a positive correlation between savings and sustainable credit operation. From the members point of view, savings represent an opportunity to save in small amounts t o form a lump sum that earns interest. This is an opportunity that the formal market or regular financial institutions do not provide.

Micro Enterprise Lending and Assistance (MELA)

Micro Enterprise Lending and Assistance (MELA) program was launched in December 1996 to provide loan to small enterprises with growth potential. The objective of this program is to provide credit facilities and technical assistance to new and existing small businesses.

The characteristics of MELA loans are: - Loan range: US$ 345 (Tk. 20,000) - US$ 3,448 (Tk. 200,000) - Service Charge: 15% - Twenty different business sectors are supported by MELA loan By the end of 2002, a total amount of US$ 48 million (Tk. 260 crore) was disbursed to 45,503 borrowers in 64 districts of Bangladesh with an average loan size of US$ 1,077 (Tk. 62,484).

Employment and Income Generation (EIG) Program

PKSF has learned that besides lack of access to finance, the two major constraints that have prevented the poor from improving their lives are the absence of self-employment opportunities and lack of skills to sustain those activities. BRAC realized that if different employment opportunities were created, along with sufficient training and refreshers for capacity development, the poor could be linked to the mainstream economy which would ultimately bring them out of poverty.Activities approved for BRAC sectoral lending and other support enterprises can be classified under the following broad categories.

Poultry & Livestock Program

Approximately 70% of the rural landless women are directly or indirectly involved in traditional poultry rearing activities. The Poultry and Livestock Program is composed of several components: poultry and livestock extension program, poultry farms and hatcheries, feed mills and feed analysis laboratories, bull station and the disease diagnosis laboratories.Till to date, 1.96 million people have been involved in this program. The key persons under poultry and livestock extension program are i) Poultry and Livestock Extension Worker ii) Chick Rearer iii) Key Rearer iv) Cage Rearer v) Broiler Rearer vi) Egg Collector vii) Model Cow Rearer viii) Model Goat Rearer and ix) Artificial Inseminator.

Fisheries
The Fisheries Program, started in 1976, is now developed into one of the most promising and profitable EIG activities for rural women. The key components of the program are pond aquaculture, open water fisheries management, and fish and prawn hatchery. SWANIRVAR BANGLADESH aims to promote pond aquaculture by rural women to provide them with an additional source of income and improve their nutrition level thereby improving socioeconomic condition of the participants. BRAC provides training, undertakes production and distribution of quality fish spawn and prawn post larvae, extends credit assistance, and technical and marketing support. Till to date 47,421 acres of water-body have been brought under fish culture and 234,412 farmers are involved in fisheries program.

Social Forestry
The social forestry program is being implemented since 1988 to make the people aware of the necessity of planting trees and to increase the number and variety of trees not only to meet the basic needs such as timber, fuel and fruit but also to restore the ecological balance. The program components are horticulture nursery, grafting nursery and agro forestry. One of the objectives of the program is to encourage people to plant trees throughout the country. At present there are 73,508 agro and social forestry farmers.

Agriculture
The agricultural extension activities can be broadly categorized into v egetable cultivation and crop diversification (rice, maize, wheat, cotton, sunflower).Under this program VO members, who have less than 0.5 acres of land in each area, receive training, technical support, inputs like HYV and hybrid seeds, fertilizers, and have access to Grameen Banks microfinance to obtain the resources for investing in farming. Interested small farmers, who have land between 0.5 and 3 acres, also receive training and technical support. Crop diversification contributes to increased agricultural productivity. Besides maize and wheat, which are used for poultry feed, rice, cotton, onion, mustard and sunflower cultivation are also being undertaken. By December 2002, there were 157,280 vegetable growers brining 67,114 acres of land under vegetable cultivation and 1,169.37 MT of seeds have been distributed.

Sericulture
Sericulture is a labor intensive agro-industry. Sericulture Program links the rural producers with urban markets. The main components of the program are: a) mulberry cultivation (roadside, homestead and bush), b) silkworm rearing, c) reeling and weaving, and d) marketing. Besides, there are other components of the sericulture program, which include silk Seed Production Centre and Sericulture Resource Centre (SRC). At present, BRAC is operating 8 Silk Seed Production Centers, 6 Sericulture Resource Centers, and 3 Reeling Centers. The Sericulture Resource Centre provides practical training to the rearers on mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing. In 2002, there were 7,407 silkworm rearers and 1.4 million Disease Free Laying (DFL) have been distributed.

Vegetable Export Program

Poor farmers require better skills and knowledge of modern agriculture practices. They also need assistance to obtain a fair price for their produce. Palli karma-sahayak foundation

(PKSF) Vegetable Export Program seeks to link the poor Bangladeshi farmers with international markets to bridge the gap between the local producers and the international consumers, in addition to introduction of technical training and modern agricultural inputs. Palli karma-sahayak foundation (PKSF) started this program in 1997-98 with particular focus on vegetables that have high demand in the European markets and could be grown in Bangladesh. BRAC has exported 621 tons of fresh vegetables and 350 tons of potatoes in 2002 to the wholesalers and supermarkets in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy in Europe, and the UAE, Bahrain, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong in Asia. In addition to French beans, Broccoli and Green chili demand oriented new items have been selected with the total export target of 800 tons of fresh vegetables and 1000 tons of potatoes for the year 2003.

Rural Enterprise Project (REP)

As the scope of employment and income earning sectors are limited, new livelihood opportunities are essential for reducing rural poverty. Moreover, many traditional livelihoods are becoming marginal and new opportunities are opening up with growing urbanization and globalization. However, the poor may not be able to gain from these opportunities without support. This realization led Society for social Development to initiate the Rural Enterprise Project (REP), to encourage employment and income generation through entrepreneurship. The project is involved in innovating non -traditional activities and introducing them to the program participants. REP was formed in 1985 to find and test new opportunities for rural development. The primary objective was to experiment with various income generating enterprises that can be owned and managed by rural landless women.

Till 2002, a total of 9,410 restaurants, 30,675 grocery stores, 5,468 laundries, 13,418 tailoring shops and 3,637 other micro enterprises were operated by women members throughout the country.

Poverty reduction: own argument

At first, to decrease the population growth rate by giving proper training and facilities of health and family planning training center. To ensure the equal distribution of resources which is available in the country? To create the employment opportunities for the poor by expanding and establishing cottage and small-scale industries. To remove the poverty, it is necessary to increase the productivity by using modern technology and skilled manpower. To create skilled manpower by providing proper training for the unskilled manpower.

We can reduce poverty through micro-credit facilities among the poor people. All cultivable land can be converted into three-cropped land by means of irrigation. To raise literacy rate by taking various programmesFood for education programme, Compulsory primary education, adult education etc. Facilitate agriculture development through institutional support and expansion of irrigation. Increase basic physical infrastructure (roads, markets) in the rural area. Promote participation of women in development activities. Utilize the resource properly to reduce poverty. Remove the social corruption for poverty alleviation. Increase the awareness of poor people by teaching and proper training. Various NGOs can play a vital role for poverty alleviation. So, we should take the opportunities of different projects and programmes of NGOs and association, such as--Grameen Bank Prokalpa (GBP), Small Farmers credit project (SFCP) etc. We can alleviate poverty by taking proper plan and utilization of resource.

Conclusion
The government and the NGOs have been relentlessly to alleviate poverty from Bangladesh. Due to their activities, the per capita income and consumption are increasing; employment opportunity, increasing and involvement in non-agricultural sector is increasing gradually. Basically poverty alleviation is multi-dimensional complex and massive issue. It is a constitutional obligation of the government to provide a reasonable living standard for the citizens by alleviating poverty. Bangladesh has received universal appreciation for her success in reduction of human poverty in education and health. Bangladesh has made sustainable progress in reduction of poverty, expansion of universal primary education, eradication of gender disparity in both primary and secondary level of education, reduction of child mortality rate, supply of safe drinking water. If everything goes according to the plan, than Bangladesh will achieve the MDG by 2015.

References
Bangladesh Economic Review 2009 Www.wikipedia.org Www.banglapedia.org Www.businessdictionary.com Owen Barden, what is poverty reduction, center for global development, working paper no-170,april-2009 6. Fighting poverty in Asia and pacific: the poverty reduction strategy; Asian development bank. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.